DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Livestock Sector in India

• The Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) recently completed the Ceremony for the Distribution of Animal Breed Registration Certificates.
• To ensure the success of the agriculture and animal husbandry industries, the Union Agriculture and Farmers Welfare Minister emphasised the necessity of identifying the numerous indigenous livestock breeds present in India.

About the livestock sector:

• Selective breeding and keeping livestock are considered to be parts of animal husbandry. The genetic characteristics and behaviour of animals are developed further for economic gain through management and care.
• An significant area of the Indian economy is the livestock industry. India has a tremendous resource of livestock. India is home to 56.7% of the world's buffaloes, 12.5% of cattle, 2.4% of the world's camels, and 3.1% of the world's chickens (2nd largest poultry market in the world).
• The sector of livestock accounts for 4.11% of the GDP and 25.6% of the GDP of all agriculture. Fast expansion in this industry may result in growth that is more inclusive and egalitarian. This is due to the fact that the majority of people involved are small landowners and landless farmers.

Note:

• The ICAR recently registered 10 new cattle breeds. As of January 2023, there are now 212 indigenous breeds in existence.
• The ten new breeds of domesticated livestock include the Kathani cattle (Maharashtra), Sanchori cattle (Rajasthan), and Masilum cattle (Meghalaya); the Purnathadi buffalo (Maharashtra); the Sojat goat (Rajasthan), Karauli goat (Rajasthan), and Gujari goat (Rajasthan); the Banda pig (Jharkhand); the Manipuri Black pig (Meghalaya).

Role of livestock in the economy:

• Employment: Due to their low literacy and lack of skills, a huge portion of India's population relies on agriculture to support themselves. About 8.8% of the population of India is employed by it. For the purpose of employing their labour during the lean agricultural season, the landless and those with little land depend on cattle.
• Food: The livestock owners' family members rely heavily on the milk, meat, and eggs produced by their animals as a source of animal protein. In 2017–18, milk availability per person was approximately 375 g/day, and egg availability was 74 per year.
• Gender equity: Keeping animals fosters gender parity. Women provide more than 75% of the labour needed to produce livestock. In Punjab and Haryana, where dairying is a key activity and animals are fed in stalls, the percentage of women employed in the livestock sector is approximately 90%.
• Livestock is the best form of insurance against calamities like famine, drought, and other natural calamities. The vast majority of cattle operations are in marginal or small-scale properties. Moreover, livestock give significant organic manure to agricultural productions.

Contribution of Livestock to the Indian Economy:

• From 2014–15 to 2020–21 (at constant prices), the livestock industry grew at a CAGR of 7.9%, and from 2020–21, it contributed 30.1% more to the country's total agricultural GVA than it did in 2014–15.

• Livestock are not only economically advantageous and a reliable source of food and income for homes, but they also give rural families a job, act as insurance in the event of crop failures, and the quantity of livestock a farmer owns determines his or her social standing in the neighbourhood.
• The largest single agricultural product in India is milk. It directly employs 80 million dairy farmers and has a 5% contribution to the national economy.

Challenges faced by the Livestock sector in India:

• Diseases: Frequent outbreaks of illnesses like Black Quarter infection, influenza, and Foot and Mouth Disease continue to have a negative impact on the health and productivity of livestock.
• Greenhouse Gases: The enormous population of ruminants in India adds to the generation of greenhouse gases. It will be extremely difficult to reduce greenhouse gases through mitigation and adaptation measures.
• Loss of local breeds: Only a small portion of attempts to cross-breed native species with foreign stocks in order to improve the genetic potential of various species have been effective.
• The main obstacles have been the limited availability of artificial insemination services due to a lack of high-quality germplasm, infrastructure, and technical manpower, as well as a low rate of conception after artificial insemination.
• Reduced credit: Compared to its contribution to agricultural GDP, the sector only got roughly 12% of the overall state spending on agriculture and related industries. Financial institutions have ignored the sector.
• Lack of Transparency: The majority of the cattle in the nation is still undeclared. Moreover, the markets for animal products in India are frequently dominated by unofficial market middlemen, are immature, unclear, and lack transparency.

Significant Governmental Initiatives:

• Rashtriya Gokul Mission: It attempts to promote and protect native breeds of cattle. This is necessary to increase milk output and increase the farmers' income.
• The National Livestock Mission seeks to strengthen the capacities of all stakeholders while ensuring quantitative and qualitative improvements in livestock production systems.
• The National Artificial Insemination Program's goal is to recommend creative approaches for impregnating female breeds. Moreover, to stop the spread of several genital infections in order to improve the breed's effectiveness.
• National Cattle and Buffalo Breeding Project: Prioritize genetic improvement of significant indigenous breeds with an eye towards development and conservation.
• Great Challenge for Startups in Animal Husbandry: to recognise initiatives from the countryside that would help India's dairy industry grow.
• LH&DC (Livestock Health and Disease Control) Program: It is being adopted to support the State/UT governments' attempts to use vaccination to prevent, control, and contain animal diseases that are significant from an economic and zoonotic standpoint.
• NADCP: National Animal Disease Control Program By totally immunising populations of cattle, buffalo, sheep, goats, and pigs against foot-and-mouth disease and bovine female calves between the ages of 4 and 8 months against brucellosis, it is being applied to manage both diseases.

Measures to promote Livestock sector in India:

• Resources: To boost the productivity of livestock husbandry in India's rain-shadow region, it is vital to provide enough fodder and drinking water.
• Marketing: Trade policies like marketing need to be more effective in order to promote a variety of livestock products, such as eggs, fish, and milk, and to give farmers a fair price by limiting the influence of middlemen.
• Training: Farmers who choose to undertake livestock rearing as a secondary source of income must receive the necessary training and subsidies.
• Research and development: The government should concentrate on the livestock industry's R&D to boost livestock productivity and benefit small and marginal farmers more.
• Veterinary Ambulance Service and Mandatory Cattle Vaccination: Ambulance services in veterinary facilities should be increased in order to offer injured animals rapid primary care.
• Moreover, frequent veterinary surveillance should be carried out in a time-bound manner, and primary livestock immunisation should be made mandatory.

Avian Influenza

• The President of the World Health Organization recently issued a warning, urging everyone to get ready for a potential pandemic of bird flu.
• 15 million domestic birds have died as a result of the bird flu pandemic, and 193 million more have been culled since October 2021. It has reached North America, South America, and Central America from Europe and Asia.
• Mammal adaptation: Skunks, a raccoon, and a red foxes are among the mammals that have been verified to have the avian flu by the US Department of Agriculture. It was thought that these mammals had eaten contaminated birds.

About avian influenza:

• Both domestic and wild birds can contract the highly contagious viral disease known as avian influenza (AI), AI viruses have also been isolated from mammalian animals, including humans.
• The viruses that cause this complex disease are classified into a number of subtypes (such as H5N1, H5N3, and H5N8), and their genetic makeup is constantly changing. Although the disease is present everywhere, some places are more likely to experience specific subtypes than others.
• Influenza A viruses can be categorised as either avian influenza (bird flu, subtypes A H5N1 and A H9N2) or swine influenza depending on the origin host (swine flu, subtypes A H1N1 and AH3N2).
• They are separate from viruses that cause human influenza and are difficult for humans to spread.

Types of Influenza Viruses:

• Types A, B, C, and D are the four different subtypes of influenza viruses.
• Humans and a variety of animals are both susceptible to influenza A viruses.
• Humans are exposed to influenza B viruses, which spread and lead to seasonal epidemics. Seals can contract infections, according to recent evidence.
• Both people and pigs can contract influenza C viruses, but illnesses are typically mild and hardly documented.
• Influenza D viruses are known to primarily infect cattle; they are not known to infect or afflict humans.

Transmission and spread:

• AI viruses are excreted in the faeces and respiratory secretions of birds. All of them can be transmitted by coming into touch with the secretions of diseased birds, particularly through faeces or contaminated feed and water.
• Because to AI viruses' resistance, particularly their capacity to endure low temperatures for extended periods of time, they may also be transported on farm equipment and quickly spread from one farm to another.
• Data gathered since 2005, show that high pathogenicity avian influenza spreads seasonally, with the lowest levels in September, a surge in activity in October, and a peak in February.

Infection in Humans:

• Swine, avian, and other zoonotic influenza viruses can infect humans.
• Human infections are typically contracted through close contact with infected animals or polluted settings; these viruses do not yet possess the capacity for long-term human-to-human transmission.
• Serious illnesses include pneumonia, sepsis with shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome, and even death. Severity: These illnesses can range from a moderate upper respiratory tract infection (fever and cough), early sputum production, and rapid progression to severe illness.
• Other described symptoms include conjunctivitis, gastrointestinal issues, encephalitis, and encephalopathy.

Impact:

• Avian influenza outbreaks have the potential to have catastrophic effects on the nation, especially the poultry industry.
• Farmers may encounter a significant amount of flock mortality, with rates frequently hovering around 50%.

Prevention:

• To reduce the danger to humans, illness control in the animal source is essential.
• Tourists and residents of nations with documented outbreaks should stay away from poultry farms, going into places where fowl may be butchered, and coming into touch with any surfaces that look to be contaminated with bird or other animal faeces.
• Quality animal and human population surveillance, in-depth examination of every human infection, and risk-based pandemic preparedness are necessary to reduce the danger to the public's health.

Treatment:

• Certain antiviral medications, most notably neuraminidase inhibitors (oseltamivir, zanamivir), can shorten the time needed for viral replication and increase the likelihood that the virus will survive.
• It is advised to continue treatment for a least of 5 days, although this can be done if necessary to achieve adequate clinical improvement.

India's Situation:

• Between December 2020 and January 2021, new cases of bird flu were discovered in several Indian states, raising concerns all over the nation.
• India was previously deemed clear of the avian influenza (H5N1) virus in 2019, which had also been reported to the International Organization for Animal Health (OIE).
• An intergovernmental organisation called the OIE is in charge of raising animal health standards all over the world. Its main office is in Paris, France.

Virus potential

• Due to its potential to start an influenza pandemic, H5N1 is most important to public health.
• An influenza pandemic happens when a brand-new influenza virus with the capacity to spread from person to person over an extended period of time originates and the general populace has little to no immunity to the infection.
• Between January 2003 and November 2022, there were a total of 868 human cases of H5N1, of which 457 were fatal, according to the WHO.
• But according to the WHO, there is currently no proof that avian flu is spreading from person to person.
• It is unknown if the zoonotic influenza viruses that are presently circulating in pigs, birds, and other animals may cause a pandemic in the future.

Sickle Cell Anaemia

The Finance Minister recently declared that India will eradicate sickle cell anaemia in a mission mode by 2047 in the Budget 2023–24.

About:

• In terms of anticipated births with Sickle Cell Anaemia (SCA), or the likelihood of having the condition, India is the second worst impacted nation.

• Haemoglobinopathies, or blood disorders, are more prevalent among tribal groups in India than non-tribal tribes, according to research and screening programmes.
• Communities living in malaria-endemic regions frequently experience SCA. Hence, the sickle cell trait provided an evolutionary benefit, providing certain people with immunity during malaria epidemics.

About sickle Anaemia:

• The inherited blood problems known as sickle cell disease (SCD) are genetic in origin.
• It is a Mendelian disorder or autosomal recessive condition.
• It is brought on by a mutation in the haemoglobin gene, which is located on chromosome 11.
• This mutation causes haemoglobin to be damaged
• A lack of healthy red blood cells results from these unwholesome changes and early cell death. Pain might result from a blood flow barrier caused by insufficient red blood cells.
• It may also result in pain, exhaustion, and infections.
• Vaso-occlusive crises, which can range in intensity and persist for a few days to weeks, are pain episodes that sickle cell anaemia patients might experience.
• Infection, excessive exertion, stress, or dehydration at high altitudes can all lead to a pain crisis. Chronic pain can harm bones, the brain, the liver, the lungs, the kidneys, and other organs permanently.

Rate of Sickle Cell Anaemia:

• According to research, tribal groups in India have a higher incidence of blood condition disease than non-tribal populations.
• Research has also revealed that sickle cell anaemia is common in regions with an endemic malaria problem.
• Another link between both illnesses was discovered in the 1940s, stating that those with sickle red blood cells have a higher chance of surviving malaria.
• Indian scenario: Malaria is most prevalent among tribal communities in India. India was the second-most severely impacted nation in terms of prenatal diagnoses of sickle cell anaemia.

Treating sickle cell anaemia:

• There is a hereditary component to sickle cell anaemia. So, entirely getting rid of it is difficult. Scientific advancements and additional research are required.
• Gene therapy or stem cell transplants are used in the expensive treatments that are now available.
• Also employed is blood transfusion from healthy donors.
• Stem cell transplants may be used to treat certain children or teenagers with this illness.
• Stem cells Transplant: Healthy bone marrow from a donor is used to replace sickle cell anaemia-affected bone marrow.
• RBCs are taken out of donated blood and given to a patient through blood transfusion, however, there are difficulties, such as a lack of donors, concerns about a reliable supply of blood, a danger of infection, etc.

Symptoms –

• Infants with sickle cell anaemia may not exhibit symptoms for several months after birth.

• Jaundice, excruciatingly swollen hands and feet, extreme exhaustion, and fussiness.

Consequences –

• Because the malformed cells lack flexibility, they might obstruct tiny blood arteries and reduce blood flow.

• A persistent deficiency of red blood cells, or anaemia, often known as sickle-cell anaemia, results from the sickle cells dying too early.
• Necrosis, severe bacterial infections, and chronic acute pain syndromes (tissue death).

What measures have been used to eradicate SCA?

• Outreach initiatives - The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) are implementing outreach initiatives to improve disease management and control.
• Portal for data collection – The Ministry of Tribal Affairs developed a portal where individuals can register themselves if they have the disease, allowing for the collection of all data pertaining to the ailment.
• Pre-marital and pre-conception screening services are established at the community level, supported by genetic counselling services, according to the National Health Mission guideline on hemoglobinopathies.
• Mission to end SCA: In the union budget for FY 2023–2024, it is stated that a mission to end sickle cell anaemia by 2047 will be launched.
• The mission calls for a concentration on raising awareness, widespread screening of those in the 0–40 age range in the impacted tribal communities, and counselling.
• The National Health Mission will provide funds for the endeavour.

World Sickle Cell Day

• A 2008 UNGA decision designating June 19 as "International Sickle Cell Day" makes it a yearly celebration. Therefore, 2009 saw the inaugural Sickle Cell Day.